Same Mistake
by HospitalHorror
Summary: based on James Blunt's lovely song Same Mistake. song fic about Nate, dark and angsty. R


_**So while I'm turning in my sheets**_

_**And once again, I cannot sleep**_

_**Walk out the door and up the street**_

_**Look at the stars beneath my feet**_

_**Remember rights that I did wrong**_

_**So here I go**_

The streets of New York were always crowded, but for Nate, they felt dead. The world had gone to shit, and now Nathaniel Archibald was alone. The cold winter air bit at his cheeks, but they were already too numb to feel. Night seemed hollow somehow; without sleep there was no point. Nate had thrown everything he once knew out the window a long time ago, though it was now that he was beginning to see just what that meant.

_**Hello, hello**_

_**There is no place I cannot go**_

_**My mind is muddy but**_

_**My heart is heavy, does it show**_

_**I lose the track that loses me**_

_**So here I go**_

_**oo oooooo ooo ooo oo oooo…**_

Walking was the only way to keep the demons at bay. If Nate stopped walking, they would catch him. Catch him and devour him like they had everything else. His heart beat heavy and slow in his chest, matching the pace of his footsteps on the frozen ground. With no destination and no starting place, Nate would have been happy to let the city and its vastness swallow him up. Keep him from daylight and the pitying looks of all those he had known. He stops for a moment, his breathing coming in short hard gasps, raking the night. Nate knows it won't be long now, he just wishes that he cared.

_**And so I sent some men to fight,**_

_**And one came back at dead of night,**_

_**said "Have you seen my enemy?"**_

_**said "he looked just like me"**_

_**So I set out to cut myself**_

_**And here I go**_

_**oo oooooo ooo ooo oo oooo...**_

Death had been an option once, but only once. Sitting there on the curb, the razorblade pressed to the dull pulse in his wrist, Nate had realized he was too coward to even end his own life. "How pathetic," he had spat, throwing the blade to the curb. Too weak even to die on his own terms, he continued his empty searching of dark alleyways and abandoned building. Hoping that eventually he might find solace. None ever came.

_**I'm not calling for a second chance,**_

_**I'm screaming at the top of my voice,**_

_**Give me reason, but don't give me choice,**_

_**Cos I'll just make the same mistake again,**_

_**oo oooooo ooo ooo oo oooo...**_

One word stayed on those numbed lips, the name of a girl he had lost somewhere along the way. He could barely hold on to even that as he slipped farther and farther away. Blaire, that was it, with dark hair and laughing eyes, Nate closed his eyes in the dark and pictured her above him. So beautiful, pale, like the moon and she had been his. Once. But he had done something, something bad and she'd slipped through his outstretched hands, becoming nothing but shadow.

_**And maybe someday we will meet**_

_**And maybe talk and not just speak**_

_**Don't buy the promises 'cause**_

_**There are no promises I keep,**_

_**and my reflection troubles me**_

_**so here I go**_

_**oo oooooo ooo ooo oo oooo...**_

He caught glimpses of himself sometimes, in the grimy puddles or elegant shop windows. He could barely recognize himself though some of the old remained, leaving nasty purple bruises up and down his soul. The real Nathaniel Archibald was dead, the one that had goals of prestigious schools and an upper class family. In his place was Nate, the boy who lost himself somewhere between the stars and no place and hadn't bothered to return home. That was who he was now. This was the Nate he knew.

_**I'm not calling for a second chance,**_

_**I'm screaming at the top of my voice,**_

_**Give me reason, but don't give me choice,**_

_**Cos I'll just make the same mistake again**_

_**oo oooooo ooo ooo oo oooo...**_

He was sure people remembered him, turned when he bumped into them on the subway, called his name into vast crowds where it echoed with the faintest memories. He was sure his mother stayed up every night praying for him to walk through the door. He was sure his father kept getting high and blamed it on his insatiable grief at the loss of his only son. Nate knew that wasn't the case though, so many reasons why he had left, but now he doesn't quite remember them. Nate thinks about Blaire again. Would she miss him? Would she remember him years later? Nate likes to believe she will.

_**So while I'm turning in my sheets**_

_**And once again, I cannot sleep**_

_**Walk out the door and up the street**_

_**Look at the stars**_

_**Look at the stars, falling down,**_

_**And I wonder where, did I go wrong.**_

The cold has caught up with him now; he sits, shivering beside the lake in Central Park. He can see the bright city lights but they are dulled in comparison to his pain, his ache. Each effort to keep his body up, his eyes open, is draining him. _Soon,_ he thinks, _soon. _The sky stretches vast above him and for this night, every star is visible. Nate lies back on the cool grass and soft tears trickle down his cheeks. To him the stars are falling, just like he has, to the ground and the sight is beautiful. As Nathaniel Archibald breathes in his last ragged breath he wonders where exactly it was that he went wrong, his only answer is the dark silence stretching before him like an intended promise.


End file.
